Working in a bottle factory, which lasted one day, and the Radio 1 breakfast show.
What is the worst job you have done?
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
Who most deserves an apology from you, and why?
Failure & regret
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Daily life
Question
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Failure & regret
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
The Guardian's long-running Q&A repeatedly asks this standing question, with minor tense variation.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I once had to dig a fire escape from a basement in a health club. It took two weeks.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 5 May 2018 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 231 →
Sheryl Crow
American singer-songwriter
I’ve been lucky. When I was a kid, I babysat and was a lifeguard, which I didn’t hate; and then I was a teacher, which I liked.
I worked in a Helms Bakery assembly line that separated egg whites from the yolks and from time to time a box of rotten eggs would come through. Need I say more?
Noah Harari
Israeli historian and philosopher
When I was 16, at the beginning of the summer vacation, I worked in a factory that made industrial valves and I was a much worse industrial valve producer than historian.
More from Monty Don
View profile →A tractor, 12 years ago. Bright yellow and still brilliant.
My children. I was away an awful lot when they were little and not very good at being a father when I was around. I could have done better.
Despite a stroke, cancer as a child and various dramas with chainsaws and tractors, the closest was probably when I choked on a lamb chop 25 years ago. Sarah performed the Heimlich manoeuvre and the lamb shot out.
Getting my 21-year-old knees back.
At the time, losing our business, home and all our possessions in 1991 after the failure of our jewellery company. But if that had not happened then other good things would not have happened, either.
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Cheryl Strayed, Irvine Welsh, Viv Albertine, Siri Hustvedt, Rose Tremain, Greg James
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